Monnie the demon wasn't that big of a threat, come to find out. He possessed no ability to touch physical objects, nor could he speak curses, nor could he use demonic magic. In fact, after a few hours of tolerating him had gone by, Remi was quite sure she might be just hallucinating him. However, every now and then, he'd find an object he could pick up, and it would ruin Remi's belief that he wasn't real. Yes, somehow, when her kitchenware was unable to touch him, random items were able to be picked up by him. This included: a lightbulb, the corner of a rug, the beaded string that pulled the blinds, light switches, Remi's hidden teenage diary he somehow found in her old room, and most impressively, a bag of chips.

But as far as the both of them were concerned, that was the limit of his power. He could pull up the blinds and eat chips. He wasn't even strong enough to kill a mouse.

Remi couldn't sleep that night nonetheless. In fact, she didn't sleep at all, nor did she even try to. She was busy observing Monnie with great distrust. She watched him make a bigger mess with his slime, and she watched him curiously try to find what other items in her house he was able to touch. Deep into the night, he was still up and about, continuing his nonsense and being overly obnoxious.

Apparently, demons don't sleep.

By the time morning came, Remi had had enough demon adventures for one night. Tired of having to put up with Monnie because of his annoying mannerisms, Remi decided to put some space between herself and the house, just to escape him. She was going grocery shopping.

However, when she sat in her car and turned the keys to manage her escape, the rearview mirror betrayed her. There he was. A demon sitting in the back seat of her car like a five-year-old.

"What are you doing?" Remi frowned.

"You can't leave without me."

"Yes, I can. Go back inside. The adult needs some adult time."

"No, you can't leave without me," Monnie said with more serious vindication.

Remi stared at him sourly for a few seconds before saying, "get out."

So Monnie stepped out of the car and stood awkwardly in the open daylight. She pulled the car into reverse and escaped her own driveway. He stayed standing there, staring at her with his bulbous ominous eye. And Remi turned out to head to town.

Getting to the end of the road, Remi flipped on her turn signal and glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure she was clear. Monnie's face stared back at her.

Remi quickly slammed on the brakes. "What the HELL?!"

"I told you! You can't leave without me!"

"Get out!"

"I can't! We can only have so much distance between us before I get yanked right back to you! It's not my fault!" Monnie said with exaggerated slimy hand motions.

"This is all your fault," Remi said through gritted teeth as she turned onto the road that would lead her into town.

Coming back to the house, Remi had to take all the grocery bags in by herself because the demon wasn't even useful enough to pick up a flimsy piece of plastic containing a loaf of bread. Monnie didn't care, but he was really starting to get under Remi's skin. On her final trip out to the car to get her last load, Monnie grabbed her attention, again.

"Hey, was the deer on the roof when we left?" he asked, pointing to the red-tiled roof of Remi's old family house. There, rotting upon it, was the corpse of a deer.

"Yeah, it was," Remi said, brushing it off. The deer was being swarmed by colorful large butterflies which were nibbling at its bones.

"I don't remember seeing those earlier," Monnie said, in reference to the butterflies.

Remi dragged herself back inside with the last of the groceries. "They're just butterflies."

"Those aren't butterflies," Monnie stated, following her inside.

"Yes, they are. Unless you're going to tell me those are ghosts or something, they're just butterflies," Remi said, placing the bags on the polished wooden kitchen counter.

"Well, they're not exactly what you humans would call natural," Monnie said. Remi gave him a stink eye.

"What are they, then?" Remi said, overly irritated with Monnie already.

"Bugs."

"NO WAY!" Remi gasped sarcastically.

Remi busied herself with putting the groceries away. Monnie, useless, did not help. Remi was lost in the pantry, realizing that there was some old food that had been sitting there, rotting for the past two months, when Monnie started making a commotion in the kitchen.

"Shoo! Shoo!" Monnie shrieked, followed by a loud thumping sound and a meek little, pathetic wail.

"What on earth are you doing?!" Remi exclaimed, exiting the pantry to find Monnie in a hilariously terrible battle against a number of butterflies. Remi didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"You left the windows open!" Monnie wailed, currently slipping on his own slime and swimming around on the floor like a fish out of water.

"I haven't even opened a window since I got here!" Remi barked, furiously eyeing the butterflies.

"Get them out!"

"Why? Are you afraid of butterflies?" Remi said with a sly smirk.

"No!" Monnie gasped, shrieking again when one of the butterflies flew dangerously close to his long pointed nose. "And they're not butterflies!"

"Uh huh," Remi rolled her eyes, making her way to the kitchen window to hopefully shoo the butterflies out. Just as she laid her hands on the windowsill, something sharp pinched her hand. She yelped, shaking off the butterfly which had just bit her. "It bit me!"

"Further evidence that they are not butterflies, as I suspected," Monnie said, now back on his feet.

"Yes, you're a fantastic detective. Now, can't you use your demon powers to get rid of them?"

"Oh, they can't actually see me," Monnie stated.

Remi was about to come up with a sassy remark when another butterfly pinched her wrist. She jerked away, earning herself another bite on her hand and a new one on her neck. Now, the butterflies were swarming her. Frantic, Remi began waving her hands about like a fool, and ended up slipping on Monnie's goop. She fell flat on her chest, bumping her chin harshly against the floor.

"Walk much?" Monnie said teasingly.

"Oh shut up," Remi said, picking herself up. She immediately bonked her head on the bottom of the kitchen's wooden counters. "Oh you've got to be kidding me!"

"I have to admit, this is entertaining," Monnie snickered.

"I will literally sew your mouth shut," Remi said, slithering along the counter and snatching up a fly swatter which hung on the wall. Monnie looked like he was about to say something but she swished the fly swatter through his face, phasing through him like he were a hologram and rightfully keeping him quiet.

The butterflies were now getting entangled in her hair. They kept spawning from nowhere, growing rapidly in numbers just to harass and bite Remi. The pinching persisted, even as she managed to kill a good two or three of them with her swatter. They left grotesque, gooey smears on the walls and counters where they died, making a sound like the hiss of a fire being extinguished.

Remi positioned herself to hit three of them at once, but when she swung, they flew, and she knocked a glass cup off the counter instead. It shattered at her feet, forming a large cut across her upper calf. Remi bit her lip and tried not to scream.

"I think I know what they are," Monnie stated, deep in thought, "by the way, are you alright?"

"Of course I'm alright!" Remi said, accidentally smashing her head into an open cupboard. "What are these things?! Cause you're right, they're NOT BUTTERFLIES!"

"Well-" Monnie began to try and explain when Remi suddenly broke about six glass plates and a really fancy mug. "Run first, I'll explain later."

"What?!" Remi said, already trying to pick up the broken plates.

"Leave the plates, run!" Monnie said, more serious this time. Remi took head to his words, dropping the glass in her hand–cutting her fingers in the process–and running straight for the door. The butterflies followed.

Stumbling out the front door, Remi fell down the porch steps and probably sprained her ankle. That didn't stop her from continuing her escape. Perhaps it was Monnie's serious tone that motivated her to actually run. After all she'd seen from him, she wasn't exactly sure it was entirely possible for him to ever truly be serious. The butterflies were still swarming her, biting her face, neck, arms, and well, any part of her skin exposed to the air. Some of them had even flown under her shirt, biting around her gut and sharply pinching her spine.

"Leave me alone!" Remi wailed, blindly running out into the road.

She lived in the middle of nowhere, so usually, this road was empty. Except, right at this exact moment, there was a truck hauling a trailer of horses which nearly plowed right through Remi. Monnie had swept in at the very last second to shove her out of the way, allowing the truck and trailer to phase safely through him instead. Remi could hear the driver cursing her out even as he sped away, but she was more concerned with her brand new road rash to care.

"What's happening?!" Remi said, realizing she'd probably never been so messed up as this.

"They're bad luck bugs. They probably have a cooler, fancier official name, but all the supernaturals here just call them the bad luck bugs," Monnie said, watching Remi stagger to her feet, "they don't always manifest in the form of butterflies, which is why I didn't recognize them at first. Their bites cause their victims to have bad luck and, well, you did almost just get hit by a truck and trailer."

"Damn it! Damn it! Why?!" Remi felt tears brimming in her eyes as she continued to blindly swat away at the butterflies. "What am I supposed to do?!"

"Find a lucky object. That'll usually repel them. It won't make your bad luck wear off for a while, unless you find a powerful object," Monnie said. He tried swatting at the butterflies himself but his touch was no good.

"What objects are lucky?"

"A rabbit's foot, horseshoe, four leaf clover..." Monnie began listing objects on his fingers.

"How am I supposed to find any of those if I have bad luck?!" Remi said, beginning to run once again in hopes of warding off the butterflies. She found herself charging into the forest which crowned Sharu Valley.

"Where are you going?!" Monnie called after her as Remi ducked into the treeline.

"Maybe I can find a ladybug! I don't know! What are other lucky objects?!"

"Bamboo, barnstars, dreamcatchers..." Monnie began to list, "shamrocks, jade, those little maneki-neko japanese cat figures, wishbones, tortoise shell cats..."

"Oh who am I kidding! I won't even be able to find a penny, let alone a stupid maneki-neko! In the forest?! And where would I ever find bamboo?!"

Remi ran straight into a low hanging branch, completely decking herself. The ground was greeting her face and ass a lot today. Covered in mud, glasses askew, and gritting her teeth, Remi looked absolutely unhinged.

"That's a great look for you," Monnie said, sliding a stick into her messy hair as if to add to her rabid appearance.

"Not. Helping." Remi grabbed a butterfly from the air and squashed it between her fingers. The bad luck bugs swarmed back around her, chewing at her face and pinching her hands again. "Why is this happening?!"

"I'm sorry, but the bugs-"

"Shut up! None of this would be happening if you hadn't showed up! Leave me alone!"

"It definitely would happen either way!" Monnie exclaimed in defense. "And I can't leave you alone! I'm sorry! We're connected now, and we made a deal! But I can't let you get eaten alive by cursed butterflies so at least let me help you." Monnie offered a hand to her and helped her back on her feet.

"I don't want your help," Remi yanked her hand away from him as soon as she could stand, "get out of here!"

"Remi, I can't!" Monnie pleaded, "please, run! You can't let the butterflies just keep- keep cursing you!"

"You already cursed me! What could some bad luck do!" Remi took some tedious steps backward. The bugs were finding their way under her clothes again. She winced in pain as they pinched her sides.

"Have some faith in me, please. Bad luck can go a long way. How do you expect to solve your family's case if you allow this curse to fall on you?!"

"What do you care?! You're just a demon!" Remi took another step back, "you've haunted my house for years apparently, so what more could you-"

Remi suddenly found that, when she took another step, there was no ground for her to place her foot on and she was now falling ass over teakettle down a very steep slope. She screamed, screaming for Monnie, screaming just to scream. She could hardly protect her head, not knowing when the fall would stop or if there were any sharp rocks behind her. She hit a really tough patch of gravel and bounced right into a river, disappearing under the mild currents.

Strangely enough, the water was the calm eye of the storm. As soon as she was submerged, the pain from the fall disappeared. It was like her life had been running without stopping, and now she'd taken a pause, having a moment to rewind the VHS and perhaps start over. Her eyes glazed upward to the sun reflecting on the surface. It was crowned by plumes of blood emitting from the wounds she wasn't even aware she'd had, yet it was all painless. The sun was lazily poised above her, elegantly fading away as she sunk into the darkness, swept by the slow currents under a lowly forest bridge.

I guess I'll die, Remi thought without hesitation. The thought didn't seem so bad.

Her hand brushed over something firm. It wasn't any typical river rock, it was flat, and smooth. She rolled herself over in the water and grabbed onto the mysterious object–it was a box, much like one you'd store jewelry in. However, there was something strange about it, not in appearance, but in the way her heart practically stopped beating when she touched it. It was as if this box was telling her, "leave me alone."

So, of course, she picked it up. Gathering her wits, Remi swam back up to the surface, finding herself beneath a quaint forest bridge which was definitely at least a hundred years old. She hoisted herself and the box onto the shore, allowing herself to catch a moment to breathe before the butterflies returned.

Remi picked up the box, setting it in her lap as she managed to sit up. She was still partially in the water and the bad luck bugs were beginning to swarm. She could sense Monnie standing behind her.

"Don't open that," Monnie warned.

"Do you know what it is?" Remi said, already brushing her fingers over its clasp, preparing to throw its lid open.

"I don't know, but something inside of it is very dead, and we best not disturb it," Monnie said. There was a quiver in his voice, like he was afraid of the box itself.

"I sense it's got something lucky," Remi said, "and I'm sick and tired of these butterflies already."

"Don't open-"

The lid of the box flew open, followed by a gush of sparkling light. Remi had to squint so that she would not blind herself. The box was full of coins! The sun's light reflecting off of the golden and silver coins irritated the bad luck bugs so immensely they began to scatter. Or perhaps it was that all of these coins were lucky that scared them off. Either way, Remi was officially rid of them!

She was about to rejoice but Monnie, mortified, spoke.

"I told you not to open that..."

"Monnie?"

Remi cautiously turned her head around to see him. However, he was not looking down at her. Instead, his eye was glued with terror to something that lay ahead of Remi. Remi's heart skipped a frightened beat. She could feel her blood chill as she slowly turned her head back around to see the mangled figure standing over her.

"Oh God! Demon! Demon!" Remi said, immediately freezing up in absolute fear.

When she met Monnie just last night, she was terrified. She thought she'd never seen, nor ever would see, something as frightening as Monnie and his disgusting tarred wings. But this being that stood over her was a thousand times more frightening than any demon she'd ever see ever again. This thing was living whilst being dead.

The mangled figure bowed its scrappy head over her. It had one crystalline eye–the other was covered by copious amounts of shaggy, choppy hair–which was sucken into its skull. Its very flesh was so hollow, she would have mistaken it for a corpse or a skin bearing skeleton had it not been standing directly over her. It was too inhuman to be compared to a human, yet at the same time, possessed the similarities required to have possibly been human once before. A long sharp nose, sunken cheeks with lengthy cheekbones, a human eye, a mass of misshapen hair, arms and legs... But at the same time, under its tattered clothes, she could see it had only a spine and ribs, no torso, which connected to its pelvic bones and tall skinny legs. And when it moved, it made a sound, bearing its teeth which were abundant and identical to that of a thousand needles.

"A d-demon," Remi's eyes widened, her breath suspiring from her lips. She could feel her heart pulsating aggressively, which became so painful she wanted to scream.

"Ghost, actually," Monnie corrected.

"Ghost..." was all Remi managed to say before nearly fainting. She managed to keep herself together but was now scooting herself as far away from the creature as possible. She still couldn't decide if it resembled a human or not.

"Ghost..." the figure repeated, possessing a voice much more masculine than Monnie's.

"Holy shit, maybe I'm dreaming."

"You alright?" Monnie asked.

"Sound as a pound," Remi barely managed to say.

"Put me back in my box," the ghost said with a dark, raspy voice.

"Oh no," Monnie ushered.

"I don't want to be here," the ghost said, hanging on every word as if speaking was a struggle.

"Um-"

"Monnie?" Remi eyed him cautiously.

"Neither of you are going to like this," Monnie said, fidgeting with his fingers anxiously.

"What?" Remi asked.

"The spiritual link you and I have has now... uh..." Monnie cleared his throat, "...It has now been split between the three of us."

"The three of... Us..." Remi's eyes traveled back to the ghost looming over the water. "WHAT?! NO! UNDO IT RIGHT NOW!"

The ghost made a strange, confused sound.

"You can't go back in your box because you, my good sir, are now attached to this woman," Monnie clarified.

"No, thank you," the ghost shook its head.

"Well, I can't undo it. Remi's the one who opened the box," Monnie shrugged.

"So how do I undo it?!" Remi exclaimed.

"Uh... You can't. See, you split our link off with him so I can't touch it, being that it was your doing, and you can't undo it because it's still technically my connection."

"Then YOU undo it!"

"Did... Did you not hear a word I said?"

"Wait, so if I move out of the house, I get rid of you, right?"

"Yes, but now you have a ghost permanently linked to you."

"I want to die," said the ghost.

"Sorry buddy, you're already dead," Monnie said, then proceeded to ignore him. "Remi, how do I say this... You're screwed. But hey! You've got another supernatural to help you in this case!"

"I should have never left Connecticut," Remi whispered to herself.

"Who are you?" the ghost asked, sounding more judgmental than curious.

"I'm Demone Byrde! You can call me Monnie though," Monnie said, hovering over to the ghost and extending a hand to shake. The ghost eyed his slimy, tarred hand, and gave Monnie a look of disgust, refusing to touch him.

"Mm," was all the ghost said.

"That's Remi, she's your host. You're spiritually connected to her so, sorry bud, you can't keep hiding in a box anymore. What were you doing in there anyways? Oh, what's your name?"

"Give me the box," the ghost said, baring his thin, needley teeth to Monnie.

Remi managed to find her courage. She picked up the box with trembling hands and offered it to the ghost. The ghost took it in his hands, and Remi found that his fingers were abnormally long and thin. Everything about him was skeletal, except for the fact that he had skin. The ghost opened the box again, a mournful look on his dreadful face.

"Well, your coins were lucky enough to ward off those cursed butterflies, so uh... Thank you," Remi croaked.

Curiously, the ghost picked one of the coins out of the box. It was a European euro which surprisingly had not been tarnished. The ghost flicked it away, fishing for another coin to observe, an Argentinian peso. This one was also discarded onto the river bank.

"Where are you from?" Remi asked, watching as each coin he picked up was from a place different than the last.

"Sharu Valley," the ghost said.

"Who... Who are you?"

"Wade Falls," the ghost said, holding a Guinean franc coin up to his shockingly blue eye.

"Do you know him?" Remi asked Monnie. He shook his head no.

"You ripped me from my box. I don't like you," Wade said, shoving the box back into Remi's hands and walking right through her as if she and the box did not exist.

"O-oh," Remi said, unsure of what to do with the box. The sensation of a ghost phasing through her body had made her blood run ice cold. She turned around nervously, "I uh..." she offered her hand to shake, "I'm Remi Rownd."

"I'm not touching you."

"Ah," Remi recoiled.

"Hey, how'd you wind up in that box anyways?" Monnie asked.

The ghost, Wade, glared at him for a moment, then slightly softened. "I.... Don't remember."

"You don't remember? Well, don't you remember how you died?"

"I'm not dead," Wade narrowed his hooked brow.

"You're a ghost so, by default, you are," Monnie argued. "So, how'd you die?"

"I don't remember."

"Yet you remember your name," Monnie scoffed. Wade made a sort of gravelly hissing sound in response which felt like nails on chalkboard to the ears.

"Don't you remember anything at all?" Remi asked, preparing to cover her ears in case he hissed again.

"I remember... Well, I don't remember," Wade said, still clinging and hesitating over every word he spoke. He moved his crooked hand over his face, lifting his misshapen hair which covered his right eye.

What had been hidden underneath startled both Monnie and Remi. Rather than having an eye, a large portion of his face was gone. The missing face was replaced by a gaping hole which oozed with a dreamy blood-like substance that didn't look quite real. It was moving yet still at the same time. The hole in his face looked like a gate to another world.

"Whatever it was, it would have given me this."

Author's Note:

Wade is my favorite thing in this world.

Let me give you some lore on his origins (not from the book but like... the lore of me creating him as a character if that makes sense lol). Sharu Valley was a concept created by one of my friends. He had a few story lines going on for it, one of which involved a fifteen year old girl and her russian werewolf girlfriend solving the secrets behind the supernaturals hidden among them as students. Another one which was mostly built on by me followed two homeless kids who lived with a group of "savages" in a schoolbus at a dump, where they both hunted down demons and ghosts for bounty to try and live independantly.

But Remi and Monnie were always the first idea. Remi's story originally followed along side that fifteen year old girl (Leslie) I mentioned earlier, but they would not interact much until the end of the story where their two mysteries collided. Wade existed but at the same time he didn't. He was a concept.

So my friend wanted help designing Wade and described him as "really fucking depressed, maybe a little watery" and boom. My ghost boy was born. He's gone through several changes and eventually worked his way into being one of the three MCs. However, his existence creates a new plot line: How did Wade die? 

With two many plots happening at once, Leslie was removed so it wouldn't be chaotic. My friend is now working on Leslie's story independant from my trio here. His book takes place a few years after mine, perhaps in 1989, where they'll be dealing with the aftermath of whats about to go down in Sharu Valley.

IT'S ALL CONNECTED-

Thanks for your patience,

--Peter